From 1798 to 1801, Napoleon Bonaparte campaigned in the Ottoman territories of Egypt and Syria, proclaimed to defend French trade interests and establish scientific enterprise in the region, but instead intended to dominate the East Mediterranean and threaten the British hold on India. Whichever it may be, on the scientific front, it led to the discovery of the ‘Rosetta Stone’ that would lead to a new field in modern research, namely Egyptology. Although Egyptology is mainly regarded as a philological discipline (the study of language in oral and written historical sources), it is also a branch of research within archaeology.
The Rosetta Stone was discovered on 15 July 1799 when French soldiers were digging the foundations of an addition to Fort Julien near Rosetta, a port city of the Nile Delta. The original fort dates to around 1470 during the Ottoman Empire, with sections built from stone looted from nearby ancient Egyptian sites. The Rosetta Stone could originally have been part of a nearby ancient temple. Fortunately, the officer in charge realised the importance of the discovery and had it carefully removed.
The Rosetta Stone dates to 196 BC and is a decree passed by a council of priests in commemoration of the 9th anniversary of Ptolemy V Epiphanes’ coming of age when he was crowned as Pharaoh in Memphis. The Ptolemaic Kingdom was an ancient Hellenistic state based in Egypt founded in 305 BC by Ptolemy I Soter, a companion of Alexander the Great. It lasted until the death of Cleopatra in 30 BC.
The Rosetta Stone’s importance lies in the fact that it contains three different scripts:
- hieroglyphs (suitable for a priestly decree) at the top section of the stone,
- demotic script (Egyptian script used for daily purposes) in the middle section, and
- Ancient Greek at the bottom.
At the time of its discovery, nobody knew how to read Egyptian hieroglyphs, but the Ancient Greek section provided the key that finally cracked the code. Today Egyptologists can translate almost any artefact inscribed with Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs thanks to the Rosetta Stone’s discovery.
Text: Loudine Philip
Image: The Rosetta Stone on display at the British Museum, London, UK. Photo-credit: Egypt Independent
References
Budge, E.A.W .1893, The Rosetta Stone: Translation of the Rosetta Stone IN The Nile, Notes for Travellers in Egypt, 9th edition (1905), Thos. Cook and Son, pp 199-211
The French campaign in Egypt and Syria, retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_campaign_in_Egypt_and_Syria on 23 February 2021
Ireland, W.H. 1828. The life of Napoleon Bonaparte. J. Cumberland, p 366
Jobbins, J & Megalli, M. 1993. The Egyptian Mediterranean: a traveller’s guide. American University in Cairo Press, p 109
Ptolemy V Epiphanes, retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy_V_Epiphanes on 24 February 2021
The British Museum. Everything you ever wanted to know about the Rosetta Stone, retrieved from https://blog.britishmuseum.org/everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about-the-rosetta-stone/ on 20 February 2021
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